Blackcurrants: the healthiest popular fruit

After analysing the findings of dozens of research papers on the properties of 20 popular fruits, a British researcher has come to the conclusion that blackcurrant is the healthiest fruit.

The research conducted by Dr Derek Stewart shows that the common or garden blackcurrant is more nutritious than homegrown apples, strawberries, tropical mangoes, and bananas.

Dr Stewart also says that blackcurrants contain the highest levels of health-boosting antioxidants, natural compounds credited with the ability to stave off a range of illnesses from heart disease to cancer.

The new findings have been published amid a growing appetite for exotic berries, colourful juices, and other superfoods.

"The motivation for the research came from the huge publicity surrounding superfoods, coupled with lack of consumer knowledge. We wanted to find out which fruit came out on top,” the Daily Mail quoted Dr Stewart, as saying.

"The combined beneficial composition and impact in health-related studies mean that blackcurrants can claim to be the number one superfruit," he added.

He further said that a lack of published data on fruits that have only recently become popular, such as raisin-sized goji berries, meant that they could not be included in the analysis.

Dr Stewart says that the analysis of available data indicated that blackcurrants were the most nutritious fruit, followed by blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and pomegranates.

Blackcurrants were found to top in terms of anti-oxidants, followed by raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and pomegranates.

Tests carried out at the Scottish Crop Research Institute near Dundee showed that blackcurrants are particularly rich in a type of anti-oxidant called anthocyanins.